This invention relates generally to providing electrical power for data centers, and in particular to providing data centers with consistent access to power without requiring the use of generators.
Data centers are a staple of modern computer communication strategy and theory. With the advent of the Internet, which allows high-bandwidth communication between remote locations, the data center has become a cost-effective and resource-efficient method of operating and managing large-scale networks. Data centers typically contain telecommunication and networking equipment, such as routers and switches, able to accommodate the communication requirements of the supported network. In addition, data centers often contain banks of computer servers, which provide both processing and data storage functionality. Data center components are typically collocated; this geographic uniformity results in the consideration of the data center and the data center components as a single entity.
Given the centralized nature of data centers, it is often important to maximize the availability of data center functionality to network users (often 99% of the time or greater). Data center down time (i.e., when the data center functionality is not available) frustrates network users and often results in lost income to the network operator. A primary cause of data center down time is a lack of power availability to the data center. One solution to avoid losing power is to couple back-up power generators to the data center, which provides power in the event that the primary power source becomes unavailable. However, generators are both expensive and highly carbon-emitting. For massive data centers, the number of generators required can be large, resulting in very high expenses and emissions. Accordingly, a solution to provide energy to data centers that is both inexpensive to implement and environmentally-friendly that can simultaneously guarantee high power availability is needed.